Stranded on an grey island, surrounded on all sides by dusty road, litter, bits of tyre and crystals of broken glass, I arrived in Syria. A small grove of pathetic looking trees provided the only cover from the afternoon sun, and within them, a young man lay back in a plastic chair, doing his best to escape. Several stray cats under a car had a similar idea. They were joined, a short distance away, by three men with three white Mazdas, smoking and every so often looking over to us.

By us, I mean me, my backpack, Yuri, his Adidas holdall and tarpaulin shopping bag. Despite us having only met 15 minutes before, Yuri was my new best friend. Yuri is Ukrainian and speaks both Arabic and English, being a little shaky in the latter. His reasons for being in Syria were unclear, but on the plus side, he was heading for Aleppo too, and so we were in it together, and, unless he happened to pull out a knife, I didn’t intend to leave his sight until we were safely in Aleppo.

“They are bad men”, he assured me, pointing over to the three guys with their Mazdas. Al Qaeda, most likely, I murmured to myself, glibly.

“They want 1000 pounds for each of us to take us to Aleppo”.

By my calculations, they didn’t have seatbelts either. And 10 UK pounds for a 40km drive that, according to my Lonely Planet should cost 2? They were having a laugh. I wasn’t being tight- it was the principle of it.

“So we wait?”, I enquired.

He nodded.

From the looks of things, so would the Mazda men, quite happy to wait in the shade until we gave in. In this part of the world, brinkmanship is taught in schools, and with over an hour since the bus had dumped the pair of us there, they were winning.

Every ten minutes or so, another white Mazda or a yellow taxi would come into view, various limbs hanging out the doors and windows. Every so often, it would slow down for us, and my Ukranian friend would shout an unfathomable Arabic phrase, and the driver would keep driving. After the first couple of occasions, I caught on, with each taking a different branch of the intersection and trying to flag down any vehicle that would listen, before it then sped off.

We were going to die there, I was sure of it.

Yuri was in luck- a yellow taxi had pulled over, and they were talking in Arabic, with negotiations appearing to go positively. “He wants 200″, Yuri finally announced. Dollars? I scoffed- so far we had received offers of $10, $20 and one for $70 from a farmer in a pickup truck- which, in a country which you can travel across for $2, is basically a rude way of saying fuck off.

“No, you are familiar with Syrian Lira?”, “Of course”, I replied….200 Syrian pounds? We were in business, and piled in before he had the chance to drive away.

I took the back seat, with my Ukrainian friend in the front, discussing the ‘bad men’ with our honest savior taxi driver, the two of them passing his mobile phone back and forth, presumably to let the authorities know. The Mazda men were taking an interest. Yuri glanced over at them, furrowed his brow and closed his door. Following his lead, I did the same.

A few moments later, I glanced over to the cabbie. Shit. The Mazda men were at his door, not looking happy and were arguing with him loudly. When the hand gestures begin, you don’t need to know Arabic to know you’re in trouble.

Yuri gingerly edged his passenger side door back open, placing a foot outside onto the curb. I did the same, and prepared to follow him in getting the hell out of here.

The Mazda men were clearly not happy about having their extortion attempt rumbled, and one of them had reached into the driver’s side, and had grabbed hold of the taxi driver’s keys in the ignition. The savior taxi driver wasn’t giving in.

We were going to die.

A lengthy standoff of about 10 seconds ensued, and into the fith second, I knew that had this been the US or UK, we’d be shot or stabbed by now…how long did a hostage-taking take in this part of the world?

The cabbie grabbed Mazda man #1’s hand, pushing it back out the window long enough for him to turn the ignition and jam his foot on the gas. Mazda men leaping away from the speeding car in every direction, we made our getaway. I was Indiana Jones.

“This is honest man”, said Yuri. I nodded eagerly. I pulled out my Arabic phrasebook, looking for the word for thank you. “Shukran”, I attempted. He smiled in reply as Aleppo’s outer suburbs emerged from the dust.